


Far Too Stupid for Ordinary Speech

by genteelrebel



Series: Adam and Joe [5]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Established Relationship, Holidays, Humor, Love, M/M, Romance, Schmoop, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3677463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genteelrebel/pseuds/genteelrebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the Adam and Joe universe. This is a short, Methos POV story that takes place during “House of the Novelty T-Shirts”.  An act of on-campus chivalry makes Methos a little too popular with his students. Joe steps in to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far Too Stupid for Ordinary Speech

In retrospect, it was taking off his shirt in public that was Methos’s big mistake.

***

Las Cruces, New Mexico. Early February, 2009. Methos was sitting with Joe on a shady bench outside the UNM student union, feeling quite peaceful and content. It was a beautiful day. A bit warm, perhaps, for that early in the spring, but then that was the joy of living in the American Southwest. Even early February days were warm enough to be short-sleeve weather, and Methos was enjoying the feeling of the warm breeze rippling over his bare arms. His sword-concealing suede jacket was draped neatly over the back of the bench. 

The fact that Joe was sitting there next to him just capped the day’s perfection. Methos usually didn’t get to see his beloved in the middle of the working day. But that morning Joe had been forced to run some errands downtown, and when he’d finished he’d been close enough to meet Methos for lunch. They’d shared a sandwich from one of the campus cafeterias, and if the quality of the food had been rather more institutional than inspired, neither one had minded. Now they were simply sitting together in the shade, enjoying each other’s company for the half hour or so that remained before Methos’s next class. Good weather, a full stomach, the love of his very long life sitting at his side; what more could any 5,000 year old Immortal want?

Actually, the only thing that marred Methos’s serenity at all was the experiment in Adolescent Social Dynamics taking place at the far end of the square. Both Methos and Joe had been watching the scene unfold. The Antiquarian Book Club—a student group that Methos was quite familiar with, having been its faculty advisor for the last two years—had chosen today to hold its annual fundraiser; the club’s president and vice president had set up a folding table in the square and were busily trying to sell raffle tickets. The impressive hand-calligraphy on the signs duct-taped to the table announced that the raffle’s grand prize was a hundred dollar gift certificate to the University Bookstore. Furthermore, anyone purchasing more than five tickets at a time would get a free soda to boot. An assortment of canned pops were sitting in a large cooler beside the table, still cool despite the fact that the ice was mostly melted. 

In these days of pinched student wallets, one would think that spending fifty cents for a chance at such a prize would be a no-brainer. Sadly, the ABCs were meeting with little success. As far as Methos could tell, their only sales the entire morning had been to him and Joe, who had each chipped in five dollars for the cause and taken their free Dr. Peppers across the square to enjoy. But for the two enterprising girls behind the table, the day held humiliations that went far beyond the simple lack of business. A group of fraternity boys and their cheerleader girlfriends had gathered in the square. And loudly insulting the ABC’s lack of a social life seemed to be their idea of an ideal lunch-hour amusement. 

Thus far, the ABCs had born with the harassment nobly. The two girls had simply ignored the comments and gone on trying to sell their wares. But even from his vantage point all the way across the square Methos could tell that their smiles were starting to get a bit strained. “I’d thought nerd-baiting had long since gone out of fashion,” he said to Joe in a low tone. “To quote that new TV show the Pixie’s in love with, isn’t this supposed to be the ‘age of the geek’? Shouldn’t the bright kids be the popular ones now?”

Joe shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s all a matter of just what kind of geek you are, I guess,” he said. “The ABC’s aren’t cool, with it, modern geeks who can break into the University computers and change a bad grade with their iPhones. Instead they spend all their time reading books--*old* books—and arguing about the best way to conserve 18th century manuscripts. That’s the kiss of death, socially.” 

“*Somebody* has to preserve 18th century manuscripts, Jobey.”

“I know.” Joe looked at him fondly. “And if any of these kids have the stuff after they graduate, we’ll figure out some way to help them. Both of us still know people at some of the major European museums. There has to be a way to get the kids in touch with them without our former employers catching on. A few words in the right ears could get them good jobs for life. But in the meantime, they’ve got to pay the price. You know that as well as I.”

Methos nodded gloomily. He winced as one of the “wits” in the frat boy crowd shouted at one of the girls behind the table, wanting to know what it had been like to lose her virginity to an encyclopedia. As crude comments went, it wasn’t really that horrible. But the President of the ABCs was a modest girl from a very conservative Catholic family; she was as unused to such treatment as a puppy that has never been kicked. She flushed a deep rosy pink and looked like she wished the earth would swallow her. Joe frowned. “Hey. Isn’t that Maria Navarro?”

“Mmm-hmmm. The ABCs voted to make her their new club president back in September.” Maria Navarro was one of Methos’s favorite students, having taken one of his introductory language classes as a freshman, then several of his more advanced courses once she’d chosen Linguistic Science as her major. Joe had run into her once or twice in Methos’s office when Methos was helping her with some work for her other classes. Like a lot of migrant worker’s children, Maria had really only started speaking English in her teens--and while she was word-perfect in everyday conversation by the time she’d started at the U, a lot of the specialized terms thrown about in her math and science courses had baffled her at first. It hadn’t taken more than a few weeks of extra help to get her up to speed, though. Maria was brilliant, hardworking, curious and bright…and took to new languages with all the ease of the proverbial duck to water. Methos was always glad to see her on his class list when a new semester began.

It was hard standing by and watching her trial-by-frat-boy now, especially as Methos could tell that both Maria and her VP had made a special effort with their appearance in order to man the booth. Both girls were wearing dainty white ruffled Mexican blouses that showed off their bare shoulders, long dark hair shining glossily in the sun. Actually, the fact that the two girls looked so effortlessly pretty was probably a great deal of why they were attracting so much attention in the first place. If they’d been wearing their usual figure-hiding college sweatshirts, hair pulled back severely into braids, Methos doubted that the boys would have given them a second look--or that their equally-pretty-but-working-much-harder-at-it girlfriends would be egging them on. Methos sighed. Sometimes the dynamics of adolescent social interaction still had the power to depress him, even though it had long ago lost its ability to surprise. 

Joe was eyeing him indulgently, clearly reading some of his thoughts on his face. “You know why you like her so much, don’t you,” he said.

Methos frowned. “Do I need a reason?”

“Probably not,” Joe conceded. “But you’ve got one anyway.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She reminds you of the Sprout.”

This was true. It was impossible for Methos to look at Maria’s animated young face and not see something of Milly in it—or at least, not to see the young woman Methos heartily believed Milly might become, in about a decade’s time. “Well, let’s hope that by the time Milly gets to college, the male half of the species will have come to appreciate geekery in all its forms,” he said. “Maybe if Milly’s favorite show catches on it will help.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Joe said thoughtfully. “I’m not entirely sure we should let the Sprout keep watching that show.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because. The other day while you were working out at the warehouse after work I caught her crawling behind the sofa in your study, sneaking up on your sword collection. She said she was pretending to be Parker, about to steal a priceless artifact from the Arms and Armory collection at the Met.” Joe lowered his voice. “Now, if the Sprout was any other eight-year-old girl, I wouldn’t worry. It would just be a case of make-believe, perfectly harmless and innocent. But since Milly is a girl who has met Amanda…”

Methos couldn’t help the snigger that escaped. “I thought Amanda swore up and down that all she’d taught Milly was a few makeup tips.”

“Yeah,” Joe said darkly. “*That* time. But if she comes to see us again…”

Methos’s snigger turned into a full-out chuckle. “You’re not thinking broadly enough, Jobey,” he said. “A few summer vacations spent with Amanda when she’s older might be just what Milly needs to ensure her financial success in life. Just think. She could be a world famous cartographer by day, infamous jewel thief by night. Not to mention all the confidence and poise a young woman can gain prancing around museum rooftops in black leather and heals. Why, we could stop setting money aside for finishing school.”

“Listen to you. Finishing school, indeed.” Joe snorted. “I keep forgetting that the last time you had anything to do with a young woman’s education, it was back in the Victorian Age. Fine, then. On your head be it. We’ll let the Sprout take after Amanda just as much as she wants. Just don’t blame me when…uh, oh!”

The crowd of hecklers around the ABC’s raffle table had been growing steadily, and it had finally achieved the mass necessary to go critical and explode. The crowd started helping themselves to the sodas. When Maria stood up and began protesting shrilly, two future leaders of America picked up the now-empty-save-for-the-ice-water cooler. They started brandishing it at her menacingly, threatening to dump it over her head. 

Perhaps threatening was all they meant to do. But thuggery is a hard thing to gauge; the cooler slipped out if their hands. It hit the heavy folding table with enough force to turn it over, scattering raffle tickets like confetti, pinning the girls underneath. And a small tidal wave of cold, icy water quickly doused them both.

Methos was already on his feet, moving with all the directness of an Immortal on his way to a Challenge. Joe was right behind him, moving more slowly but with even more anger. Mob mentality being what it is, if they hadn’t been there, perhaps the situation would have deteriorated further. But not even youthful stupidity could keep the frat boys from recognizing the awesome sight of an adult in authority consumed with righteous wrath--and a wrathful Methos was a very awesome sight, indeed. The two young men who had swung the cooler quickly took to their heels and abandoned the scene altogether. The rest simply stood like idiots until Methos snapped at them to help him lift the table off the girls, at which point they swung into action like new army recruits being yelled at by their sergeant. Methos helped them move it out of the way, then quickly knelt by the ABCs to determine the damage. 

Both young women would have some colorful bruises, but Maria had taken the worst of it by far. The edge of the table had landed squarely on the toes of her right foot, which had been left quite exposed by her light leather sandals. Two of the smaller toes were sticking out at ominous angles. The big toe swelled visibly even as Methos gingerly felt it, causing a disturbing gritting sound and making Maria bite down on her lip in pain. “Better call 911,” Methos said to Joe, who, in true Joe fashion, already had his cell phone to his ear. Methos gave him a warm smile of appreciation and turned his attention back to the wounded. “Don’t try to stand up,” he told Maria. “I think at least a few of those toes may be broken. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Nnn-nn-no,” Maria answered, teeth chattering. “I’m fine. Just…” 

She shot an agonized look around the square, where several of the young men in the crowd were gawking at her openly. After a brief second of confusion Methos understood why. The melted ice water had soaked the girl to her skin, and her pretty gauze blouse had all but gone transparent. The sodden fabric was now clinging to Maria’s youthful breasts in a way that was even more titillating than simple nudity would have been. Maria, bright pink, had crossed her arms over her chest defensively. But she was well endowed enough for that to be only a partial solution, and a temporary one at that. With her wounded toes there was no way she was going to be able to get to her feet without lowering her arms. 

Methos swore internally, thinking about his suede jacket, still sitting abandoned on the bench. Skillful as he was at the art of misdirection when it came to hiding his Ivanhoe, there was simply no way Methos could lend the jacket to Maria without her noticing the large sword hidden in the lining. He looked up at Joe, intending to ask for his sport coat, but Joe had already draped it around the shoulders of the other young lady, who was in a very similar state. Ah, well. Maria was getting pinker by the second. There was no time to spare, and Methos could handle a little embarrassment far more easily than she. He stripped off his own shirt, a dark navy cotton tee with “Experience is an excellent teacher, but she gives way too much homework” printed across the chest, and handed it to her. 

The look of intense, amazed gratitude Maria gave him as she pulled the t-shirt over her wet blouse was something to see, but Methos didn’t even look at her. Instead, he was glaring ferociously at the young men in the crowd, hoping to embarrass a few of them into doing the right thing. “I don’t suppose one or two of you *gentlemen* would mind running over to Campus Health and borrowing a few towels?” he inquired icily, displeasure plain. “Better get a blanket, as well.”

His years as Death paid off. Two of the boys gulped audibly and took off running. Only time would tell if they actually returned with the requested items. But at the very least Methos’s act of charity seemed to have turned the mood of the crowd. Most of the angry murmurs he heard now were against the perpetrators, not the ABC’s, and several of the cheerleader girlfriends were eyeing Methos with undisguised admiration. Joe was looking at him in much the same way. The musician murmured “Born before the age of chivalry, my ass” under his breath, but Methos could tell he was pleased. The look of warm approbation in his beloved’s eyes made the long, slightly chilly wait for the ambulance worthwhile, and caused Methos’s skin to tingle with anticipation. He had a feeling that Joe was going to treat him to some very good reward sex later in the day.

He never even noticed the camera lens on the cell phone pointed in his direction.

***

Two days later, Methos came home from work to find an empty house. He let himself in, read the note Milly had left for him on the refrigerator—“Jobey ran out of chili powder, so I’m taking him to the grocery store to get some”—smiled at the wording and the mental image of Joe being “taken” to the grocery store by a eight-year-old, then started to help himself to a beer. 

A moment’s thought checked him, and he ended up pouring himself a glass of milk instead. Milly had recently started getting very quiet and uncomfortable whenever he or Joe drank in her presence. Joe blamed this on the heavy-duty anti-alcohol campaign they were currently running at Milly’s school. Methos privately thought it had more to do with the way Gabriella’s new boyfriend perpetually had a can of beer attached to his hand, making his loud, obnoxious manners even louder and more obnoxious. But it really didn’t matter. Before her death, Margareta had let it drop that Milly’s absent and largely unlamented father had been an abusive alcoholic before he abandoned Gabriella for greener pastures, which to Methos’s mind was reason enough to be careful. The last thing Methos wanted was to give his Pixie any reason, however small, to associate him and Joe with her dad. And so the two men had agreed to limit their drinking to times when the little girl wasn’t around. 

As he carried his oh-so-wholesome beverage into his study, Methos had to shake his head. It was a strange set of circumstances indeed that had caused Death to voluntarily given up drinking beer for the sake of an eight year old girl, and to literally give the shirt off his back a slightly older one. “I’m getting soft,” he said to no one in particular, then caught his reflection in the hall mirror—he was wearing an embarrassingly distinct frothy milk mustache. Methos couldn’t help chuckling as he wiped it away. 

Truthfully, he wouldn’t want life to be any other way.

He was just about to sprawl out on the couch in his study with the latest issue of Archeology Today when his phone rang. “Well, hello there, handsome,” a familiar voice purred in his ear. “Tell me. Is it hot down there in Las Cruces? Or is it just you?” 

“Amanda?”

“That’s right, stud muffin. It’s me. I was just wondering— have you been eating a lot of Campbell’s soup lately? Because they say you are what you eat. And *you* are definitely looking mmm-mmm good. ”

Uh-huh. Right. Methos took the receiver from his ear and tapped it experimentally on his desk. Heaven knew, Amanda’s sexuality was a force of nature roughly equivalent to a raging tornado, and she often carried flirtation to ridiculous extremes. Still, she usually had better taste than to use pick-up lines that wouldn’t have been out of place in the cheesiest of singles bars. “’Stud muffin’?” he repeated incredulously.

“Oh, yes indeedy, tiger! I have to say, I’m a bit surprised that Jobey lets a sexy beast like you out of the house at all…”

“Amanda.”

“But then again, perhaps such high quality man-candy can be found on every street corner in your town. In which case, I may have to talk Nick into opening up a branch of Raven-Wolfe Security in the States.”

“Amanda, sweetheart, what have you been drinking?” Methos inquired dryly, and when his only answer was a merry laugh he shook his head. “Amanda, *please* tell me that Nick isn’t sitting there overhearing this. I’d really hate to have him come after my head because of a misunderstanding.”

“Oh, he’s safely in the next office over, never fear,” Amanda answered blithely. “But I wouldn’t be too worried even if he wasn’t. He was just as impressed by your little photographic debut as I was. Maybe even more so.” Her voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. “I think he’s planning to ask you for workout tips.”

“Workout tips? Photographic debut?” Methos was getting impatient. “Amanda, what is all this about?”

“Better turn on your computer, Alex. Those gorgeous abs of yours have gone viral. Or…well, maybe not viral; thus far your pictures haven’t spread beyond the U of NM. But you’ve definitely got all the communicability of, say, a good case of bacterial food poisoning. Here.” Amanda’s tone suddenly became business like. “I’m e-mailing you the pertinent links now.”

The encrypted e-mail from Raven Wolf Security arrived in Methos’s in-box a few moments later, and he dutifully typed in the password to open it. Seconds later he was cursing loudly and floridly, using words that would have made the Pixie die of shock and might even have earned a surprised glance from Joe. “My, my, darling! Language,” Amanda tsked, then instantly became more sober. “You see why I thought I had to bring this to your attention.”

“Oh, yes. I certainly do.” 

Methos was looking at a social media page belonging to one Dion Romero-Alverez, a young lady Methos vaguely remembered as having taken his Intro to Linguistic Science class the semester before. The top entry was titled “Mire el Doctor Caliente!” (“Look at Dr. Hot!”) and featured several pictures of his shirtless self standing in the square: one very Chippendale-esque shot of Methos stripping off his t-shirt in the first place, another of him bending down to hand it to Maria, and several more of him simply standing by while the EMTs attended to Maria on the ground. Methos groaned loudly. The pictures were slightly on the grainy side, obviously taken with a cell phone or something similar. Still, they were clear enough that anyone who cared to could easily identify his face. 

Not that his face seemed to be most of the page visitors’ main concern. All the entry’s comments were made up of various multi-lingual praises of his other body parts, as well as some fanciful speculations on his non-academic talents. (“Gorgeous,” said one. “Bet he’s a *really* cunning linguist,” read another.) There was also a liberal sprinkling of HOT! emoticons and sprightly animated GIF hearts. 

Amanda was uncharacteristically tactful and silent while Methos read it all. When he finished, he spoke softly, dread and disbelief in every word. “Amanda. Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked over the years to keep my picture out of the public eye?”

“Yes, darling. I know,” Amanda answered. There was no hint of teasing in her manner now. “And I know how potentially dangerous this could be, should the wrong eyes happen across it. That’s why I had to call.”

“How on earth did you find out about this?”

Now she sounded surprised. “Darling, internet security is what Nick and I *do*. You and Jobey were the ones who paid us to keep an eye out for any mention of you two online. We know about this from…well, not from the moment Ms. Jeanetta Fairfax first took the photos, but almost from the moment she first texted them to her good friend Tiffany. Who then distributed them to every other female member of her study group, one of whom—Ms. Romero-Alverez-- set up that luv-er-ly tribute you just witnessed.” Amanda chuckled. “The entry went live just about 20 minutes ago, and she’s already had well over a hundred comments. Be proud, darling. At this rate you’ll be even more popular on the UNM campus than a new version of Angry Birds.”

Methos cradled his head in his hands. “God, Amanda. What am I going to do?”

“Never fear, dearest. Auntie Amanda is looking out for you.” There was a business like clicking of keys. “I’ve already initiated the transfer of a very specific virus to Ms. Romero-Alverez’s server. Her pictures will be transformed into those annoying little x’s in a matter of minutes. The virus will transfer to her hard drive and destroy the copies there the next time she checks her e-mail. Then it will e-mail itself to all her correspondents and do the same on their hard drives, then send itself to all of their correspondents, too—and so on ad infinitum. Eventually, every photo in the world with those filenames will be destroyed.”

“And if somebody has saved them under a different filename?”

“Never fear. We have that covered, too. I’ve uploaded a second virus that will recognize the images themselves, not just the filenames--it’s a bit like the face recognition software the CIA uses. It will take a little while longer to work. But it will do the job, and eventually it will destroy that picture on every internet-connected computer in the world.” Amanda snickered. “We call it our “doctor” virus.”

Methos heard the snicker and wondered at it. “Is that a reference I’m supposed to recognize?”

“Darling, you aren’t hanging out with enough geeks! *The* Doctor? Doctor Who? The ninth doctor used something similar to destroy all reference to himself on the internet in an early episode.” 

Methos grinned. “Nine? I quit watching after Four. There couldn’t be a better Doctor than Tom Baker. And since when did you become a classic science fiction fan?”

“Ever since running a black-hat security firm became less about knowing how to break into top-of-the-line safes and more about hiring teenage computer hackers who talk about nothing else,” Amanda said with a little sigh. “You’d be surprised at what I have to do to keep relating to my employees, darling. I can argue about what was the best Star trek movie for hours, now.”

“The moment they get you into a pair of prosthetic Vulcan ears, I want a picture.”

“Never going to happen,” Amanda said decisively. “And if it does, I will have all copies destroyed. Just like I’m destroying your little striptease, darling.” She cleared her throat, suddenly sounding a little uncomfortable. “Speaking of which…” 

Oh, dear. “Yes?”

“That rather attractive young lady with the wounded ankle…”

“Yes?”

“Is there anything you need to tell me about her? Or maybe…about you and Jobey?”

“Um. I don’t think so,” Methos answered, a bit confused by the question. “Her name’s Maria. She’s a student. One of my best.” When this statement was met with a pointed silence, Methos’s eyes narrowed. “Amanda. Just what are you trying to imply?”

“Well…” No question about it, Amanda definitely sounded uncomfortable now. “You have to admit that it’s not in your nature to simply hand over your clothing to random strangers, Alex. And the photos are fairly low res, but that one of you bending down to give her the shirt has your left hand pretty prominently in the foreground. Nick and I…we couldn’t help but notice that you were no longer wearing your commitment ring.”

“Oh. I see.” 

Methos’s left hand curled reflexively. He’d worn that ring for years, ever since he and Joe had formerly sworn their vows during their commitment ceremony in London. Methos’s hand still felt rather naked without it. “Jobey and I haven’t split up, Amanda,” he said tiredly. “And I haven’t started taking off my ring on campus so I can chase after 19-year-old coeds, either, if that’s what you’ve been thinking. There was…well. I fought a Challenge recently, the first one I’ve faced since we moved. It was little closer than I would have liked.”

Now Amanda sounded truly alarmed. “Challenge? Who?”

“Nobody you’d know, Amanda. Just your typical head-happy youngster who happened to be in Las Cruces, felt my Presence, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He Challenged me on campus a few months ago.” Mentally, Methos crossed his fingers; the truth, of course, was a great deal more complicated than that. But there was no need to share that with Amanda…at least, not yet. He looked down at his bare fourth finger. “The fight would have taken only half as long if my ring hadn’t gotten snagged in his coat. I had a horrible moment of wondering whether I’d need to cut off my own finger to escape before it came free. Just a moment, but long enough. When Jobey heard the story, he insisted I stop wearing it. It’s still sitting in our top dresser drawer, wrapped in cotton.”

“Oh, Alex,” Amanda breathed, and Methos could hear her sympathy. “I did wonder about something like that happening, when I first saw your rings at your commitment ceremony…”

“Oh, really?” Methos smirked. “And there was me thinking that you were just mentally calculating their value. Didn’t you tell Jobey that he should have held out for a few more diamonds at the reception?”

“Well, yes,” Amanda answered, completely unabashed. “But that was just teasing, and you know it. No, but I really did wonder that you chose to wear such an ornate ring every day. I can even remember Nick asking me about it, when we were at your house for Thanksgiving, since I’d been busy drilling the idea into his head that any kind of jewelry or loose clothing can be a liability in a fight.” She giggled. “Nick came to the conclusion that you were just such a good fighter that it didn’t matter. Sort of like Duncan and his ponytail, back in the day.”

“Hardly.” Methos rubbed his face ruefully. “Just too old and stupid to remember those sorts of details. It was my own fault that I didn’t remove it before the battle begun; I had plenty of time, I just forgot. I told Jobey that I would never make such a mistake again. But he insisted.”

“And what Jobey insists on, Jobey gets,” Amanda said, without a trace of sarcasm. “Yes, I know. Well, to tell you the truth, I’m quite relieved. Nick keeps getting these silly ideas about buying me an engagement ring. If I tell him your story, maybe he’ll think twice.”

Methos raised his eyebrows. “You can’t use my mistakes as an excuse for avoiding the altar forever, Amanda. Sooner or later you’re going to have to let the boy tie you down, or else set him free. He’s that kind.”

“Mmmm,” she said non-commitally, and changed the subject. “So, how’s your little Pixie doing? Nick and I were pleased to hear about her success at the state geography bee. That photo you sent of her holding her trophy was precious.”

“She is a little bright spot, isn’t she.” Methos let his fingers graze the edge of his desk, where a framed copy of that photo was displayed in pride of place. “Shame she didn’t come in first. Jobey would have loved taking her to Washington DC for the finals.” 

“Ah, well. She’s only eight. There will be plenty of chances for her to see the world later on.”

“True.” Methos smiled. “As a matter of fact, Jobey and I were just discussing whether or not we should send her to you for a few summer vacations when she gets older. Let you teach her some of your ‘special’ skills. Jobey was against it.”

“He would be,” Amanda said with a sniff. “Just remind him that a man who spent most of his life peering through binoculars at others is standing on particularly shaky moral ground.”

“Oh, no.” Methos said with a chuckle. “I’m not getting into that. You’ll just have to argue it out with him yourself the next time you visit. Preferably someplace out of the Pixie’s hearing.” 

“Darling! Do you really think I’d air our dirty laundry in front of the child?”

“No,” Methos said thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think you would.” He looked down at his laptop again, mood sobering as he took in his own image surrounded by little pink hearts. It all looked so *innocent* on the surface. Even the bad sexual innuendos had a certain charming naiveté. Little did the children know that if the wrong eyes saw it, it could result in getting both Methos and his life-partner killed. “Thank you, Amanda,” he said. “You really saved my ass today. Jobey’s, too. We…we owe you.”

“All part of the service, darling,” Amanda answered, but the words weren’t as glib as Amanda’s words normally were, and he could tell by her tone that she was affected. She cleared her throat. “I must fly. Give that handsome man of yours a kiss from me. And try not to worry too much, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.”

***

Amanda was as good as her word. Less than ten minutes after they’d hung up the phone, Methos refreshed Miss Romero-Alverez’s Facebook page to discover that his pictures had indeed been corrupted. He had no doubt that the same thing was happening on computers across Las Cruces. Amanda and Nick were good at what they did. Still. Of Methos’s two parting promises to Amanda, the first—giving Joe a kiss—proved to be infinitely easier to keep than his second promise not to worry. After the Pixie went home for the night, he and Joe spent several hours locked in serious conversation in their bedroom, discussing whether it was time to implement Emergency Procedure A: namely, getting out their spare passports and emergency stash of cash, faking their deaths, and starting over somewhere new. But Joe counseled patience. “There are very few people to whom those pictures will mean anything more than that Professor Porter is a very good-looking man who spends a surprising amount of time in the gym,” he said. “None of who have any reason to be trolling the Facebook pages of young New Mexican coeds. Besides, Amanda and Nick know what they’re doing. If anyone can make those photos go away, it’s them. The chance that anybody dangerous has, or ever will, see them is very small.”

“I know. But that chance isn’t zero, Jobey.”

“No. You’re right, it isn’t. But sometimes you have to play the odds, Alex. If the day ever comes that we get real proof that the Watchers or another of your old enemies has found us here…well, we both know what we’ll have to do. But for now, let’s just do what we’ve always done. Stay cautious, stay alert. And enjoy ourselves as best we can.” Joe took his hand. “We’ve built a good life here. Let’s try to hang onto it a little longer.”

Methos would have been lying if he said he didn’t have misgivings. He disliked gambling on principle, especially when it seemed like the odds were in his favor. In Methos’s experience, those were exactly the sort of moments when the laws of probability tended to turn around and bite him on the ass. But…he’d already asked Joe to give up on one life in the last four years. And there was no question that their roots in Las Cruces that had grown surprisingly deep. All it took was one look at the Pixie’s latest cartographic masterpiece, lovingly pinned to their refrigerator with magnets, to make that clear. He nodded, double checked their spare passports just in case, and did his best not to worry.

And before the week was over, the universe had seen fit to provide him with other things to worry about, instead.

***

It started out simply enough. A few lingering glances when he got his morning espresso at the little coffee cart outside the language arts building, an especially pert chorus of “Good *morning*, Dr. Porter!” when he walked into his first class. By the end of the day, though, it was obvious. Methos’s act of heroism—or possibly simply the sight of his naked torso—had made a great impression on the young people of UNM. He was now the official darling of every hormonal student who needed an outlet for their adolescent teacher fantasies. 

By great bad luck, Valentine’s Day happened to fall on that weekend. By Friday afternoon, Methos’s office had been filled with so many teddy bears, boxes of chocolates, and other heart-themed offerings of love and lust that it was almost impossible for Methos to get through the door. In desperation, Methos tried giving the trinkets away to his colleagues, only to find he had no takers—his fellow professors all thought the situation hilarious, far too hilarious to end the joke by helping him dispose of the offerings. He ended up having to bribe one of the departmental secretaries to help him pack it all into boxes and carry it down to his van—which she did, but with much more amusement than Methos thought was strictly necessary. “At least now I know why you drive this old thing,” she said, eyeing Methos’s battered VW bus as he loaded the boxes in. “I always had kind of wondered, but now I know. You need *something* to carry all the fan mail.” 

Methos just rolled his eyes and tossed a box of red hots at her. She evaded it neatly. “Seriously,” she said, although her twinkling eyes were anything but. “What’s Jobey going to say when he sees all this?”

“I have no idea,” Methos answered, and slammed the van door shut.

What Joe actually said was “Holy Shit!”, in a very dazed kind of way, when Methos took him out to the van later that night. (Methos had waited until after the Pixie had gone home to unveil his cargo.) Joe’s dazed expression lasted through the first two of the four trips it took Methos to carry all the boxes into his study. By the third trip, however, Joe had gotten un-dazed enough to start rifling through the booty, and by the fourth he had helped himself to a chocolate cupid and was snickering over a heart-strewn love-letter, clearly enjoying himself hugely. Methos dropped his last box and placed his hands on his hips. “It’s not funny,” he said.

Joe chuckled. “It is, you know. It really is. You just can’t see it yet.” 

“I’m not sure I ever will.” Methos flopped down into his desk chair. “God, Jobey. What am I going to do?”

“Not much you can do,” Joe answered. “Your cover has been blown, my friend.” 

“And which cover is that, exactly?”

“The ‘Dr. Porter isn’t a sexy beast’ one.” Joe waved his now-headless cupid in the air. “Come off it, Alex. Ever since you’ve gotten here, you’ve been in geeky-academic mode. Oh, you haven’t gone quite so far as to wear glasses and tweed, but your sword coat *does* have elbow patches on the sleeves. Throw in a hefty dash of Stern Professor, the one who gives the kids the death’s-head stare whenever they talk in class and never, ever accepts an assignment late, and it’s no wonder that none of the children ever saw you as fantasy material before. But now—“ Joe grinned a wolfish grin. “Now, you’re a bonafide white knight. You’re the professor with the heart of gold who will do anything to save a damsel in distress. And it turns out that under those elbow-patches there’s a smokin’ fine body, too. Sorry, Alex. The cat, as they say, is out of the bag. You’re just going to have put up with the adoration of the masses.”

“Gee. Just what I always wanted,” Methos said sourly. Joe chuckled again and took another bite of cupid. Methos surveyed him carefully. “You…ah, you’re taking this a little better than I expected.”

“Hmm? I am?” Joe looked at Methos curiously. “Why? Did you think I would be jealous?” 

“Well…”

“Alex Porter.” Joe shook his head, looking at Methos with fond exasperation. “If I can handle Duncan MacLeod making cow eyes at you every time we’re together…not to mention Amanda draping her body all over yours every time she comes to visit…”

“Ahem.” Methos coughed pointedly. “Which one of us had her lipstick smeared behind his ear the entire night she took us to Le Moulin Rouge?”

“Yeah, well, she threw herself on me,” Joe answered. “You were there; you saw her. You know I was just an innocent victim. But anyway, you see my point.” He put down the cupid and looked at Methos lovingly. “What we’ve got is good, Methos. Solid. If a woman of Amanda’s caliber flirting with you doesn’t make me feel threatened, then I’m not likely to get jealous of a couple dozen co-eds with way too much time on their hands.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Joe held up a lacey handmade card. “*Especially* not ones with this little imagination. This one’s the fourth one in a row to praise your ‘soulful blue eyes’—I guess nobody’s noticed that they’re actually hazel. And I’ve lost count of the number of times someone’s called you ‘Sexy Lexy.’ Honestly. You’d think some of these kids had never heard of creativity…” A photo fell out of the card, printed on cheap inkjet paper. Joe picked it up, blinked, turned it the other way around, and blinked again. “Well, okay,” he said. “I guess that required a *little* creativity. But still.”

Methos picked up the photo, frowned at it for a moment, then tossed it back on the desk. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said dismissively. “It does remind a little of my time in Middle Kingdom Egypt, though. There was this one priestess there who did something similar with an oil lamp and a peacock feather…”

“Was she your student too?”

“Jobey Darwin!” Methos collapsed back into his chair, seeing that Joe was now laughing at him outright, and shook his head. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you.”

“Maybe a little.” Joe looked at him affectionately. “The real question is, why aren’t you? It’s harmless enough. And you must have dealt with student crushes before.”

“Not like *this*,” Methos said emphatically. “Not in this volume. Besides, the last time I taught in a large university, it was 1902, Joe. All of my students were male.” Joe raised his eyebrows expressively. After a moment, Methos let his shoulders slump. “Which, all right, didn’t entirely eliminate the problem,” he admitted. “But it certainly made it simpler. Everyone was always very discrete about such things in those days. There was a definite code a man followed when he wanted to approach another man, which made it easy to turn the occasional love-struck student away. All I had to do was pretend not to understand the signals…”

“Or say ‘Not here, see me after the lecture,’ and take them up on it later behind closed doors.”

Methos squirmed uncomfortably. “Yes, well,” he said. “I never said I was an angel. And times were different then.” 

Joe eyed him sympathetically. “No faculty review boards or outraged parents ready to ride you out of town on a rail if you dared to seduce a male student?”

“Well, no, now that you mention it. But the real difference is that I wasn’t a married man back then.” Methos reached across the desk and took Joe’s hands. “The love of my life wouldn’t be born for another half a century, Jobey. You can’t blame me for taking advantage of the occasional opportunity for dalliance before then. I had no idea there’d be something so much better waiting for me if I just bided my time.” 

“Flatterer.”

“It’s not flattery, Jobey. It’s the simple truth.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Joe’s eyes glowed warmly. He leaned down while Methos stretched up to share a very satisfying, if slightly crick-making in the neck, kiss. Then Joe straightened, reaching over to ruffle Methos’s hair. “Don’t worry about your new popularity too much,” he advised gently. “You know what kids that age are like. Soon enough, they’ll find something else to attract their attention, and you’ll be yesterday’s news. But in the meantime…” Joe began rifling in one of boxes once again, beaming broadly as he came up with a small shrink-wrapped bottle. “Edible massage lotion,” he said. “Cherry flavored. Want to give it a try?”

Methos’s pulse quickened. But he made a show of surveying the bottle, including the truly impressive list of unpronounceable chemical ingredients, and put his nose in the air. “It’ll just taste like cough syrup.”

“Probably,” Joe conceded. “But who said you’d be the one tasting it?” Methos’s pulse leapt again, and Joe smiled. “Come on, Professor,” he said. “I think I ought to prove to you that I was worth the wait.”

He held out his hand, and Methos allowed himself to be pulled out of his chair and led out of the study toward their bedroom. 

***

Methos was right. Joe took one taste of the massage lotion and pronounced that it did, indeed, taste just like cherry cough syrup—and a rather inferior, cheap, off-market brand of cough syrup, at that. Still, this didn’t prevent Joe from making rather creative use of it anyway, which meant that Methos’s Valentine’s Day weekend ended up a whole lot better than it had begun. He went back to school on Monday completely satiated and relaxed, and very much looking forward to a return to normal life. Surely, by now his fifteen minutes of campus fame would be over. Life could go on as it always had.

It came as a rather rude surprise, therefore, when the outpouring of Dr. Porter appreciation failed to cease with the holiday. It did slow up a bit. The UNM basketball team suddenly started showing signs of making it all the way to the championship, and since the team’s new point guard was a 22 year old brunette with chiseled abs that rivaled Methos’s, many of Professor Porter’s admirers defected. But there was still a determined core of young women who spent all their classroom hours trying to make eye contact with him, and not a week went by that Methos didn’t find a stuffed animal or two waiting for him in his office. There was also a steady flow of cards, letters, and e-mails with allegedly enticing pictures attached. Most of these ‘admirers’ were easy enough to ignore. Methos saved the most humorous and/or outrageous messages to share with Joe, and cheerfully disposed of the rest. But one was different.

Methos had found the first white rose, simply decorated with a dark pink bow around its stem, immediately after the missing t-shirt incident. In the rest of the flood it had been easy to overlook; Methos had only really noticed it because it had been left on the lectern in his lecture hall, not in his office along with all the other gifts. But when he started finding similar floral tributes every Tuesday and Thursday without fail, left not just in his office but in a variety of campus locations that proved someone knew his daily habits very well, it began to be a matter of concern. The roses were always the same pristine white, decorated with a scrap of the same dark pink ribbon, which gave the offerings a certain creepy ritual quality that Methos wasn’t sure he liked at all. Oh, the odds were good that there wasn’t anything to worry about. The flowers were probably the symptom of quite an ordinary adolescent crush. Still, it bothered him. And that along with the continuous flood of gifts from his less subtle admirers made Methos wonder just why he’d ever wanted to get back into education in the first place. 

One day, nearly a month after the infamous Missing T-Shirt Incident, Methos walked into his office to find that the sorority sisters of Phi Gamma Mu had filled his office with dozens of balloons. The balloons were mostly plain latex models in various frightening shades of pink, but there were a few more expensive, decorative Mylar types mixed in, one of which started singing “You light up my life” in a tinny electronic voice whenever Methos got close enough to trigger it. Methos was seriously wondering if he could run them all through with his sword without being seen when the head of the linguistics department suddenly poked her head through his door, looking coolly professional as always in one of her flawlessly tailored suits. “Alex. Good, you’re here,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about the class structure for next quarter, and…oh.” She stopped in mid-sentence, seemingly mesmerized by the waving balloons. “Good heavens. Is all this for you?”

“It seems to be.” 

“Oh, dear.” Dr. Eaves put her hand to her mouth. Methos got the distinct impression that she wanted to giggle, but was much too dignified to do so. “Between you and me, I’d heard rumors that your popularity amongst the students had skyrocketed,” Dr. Eaves said. “But I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” 

“I’m not sure I believe it yet,” Methos said sourly, gazing at the balloons in irritation. “Isn’t there a University policy against students giving their professors gifts?”

“Well, it’s mostly against the professors accepting them,” Dr. Eaves answered thoughtfully. “We don’t want the clever young things to get the idea that they can buy a good grade with a bunch of balloons. So normally I’d say you’d be honor bound to try to located the givers and give their presents back. But given the circumstances…” She frowned at another particularly atrocious helium balloon, this one shaped like a floppy-eared dog that began barking “I WUV YOU!” the second she moved within range. “I’d say you’d be justified in getting rid of them as expediently as possible.” 

Methos smiled savagely. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He got two pairs of scissors out of the desk and offered one to Dr. Eaves.

Dr. Eaves laughed and waved them away. “No, no. I didn’t mean pop them. Releasing that much helium into the air all at once would probably be bad for your health. Have you thought about donating them to the hospital? My secretary volunteers in the pediatric oncology ward on weekends; I’m sure your balloons would help brighten the kids’ day. I can have her come and collect them before she goes home tonight, if you’d like.”

It was a lifeline, and Methos snatched at it. “That’s a great idea, thank you,” he said. “At least then somebody would get something out of this mess.” He shook his head, glancing from the piece of poster board bearing the legend “From Your Secret Admirers At Phi Gamma Mu!” in large glittery letters, to the most recent white blossom his floral stalker had left on his computer keyboard. “For the life of me, I don’t understand what’s gotten into them,” Methos said defeatedly. “I’m already committed, for heaven’s sake. To another man.”

“Are you?”

Astonished, Methos stared at Dr. Eaves. She sighed. “Alex, may I be frank?”

“Please.”

“Very well.” With surprising perseverance, Dr. Eaves cleared a path to Methos’s desk…some of the balloons bounced back to hit her in the head, but they both ignored it…and leaned against it. “Of course *I* know you are a happily committed man,” she said briskly. “And so do most of your colleagues within the department. But I’m beginning to wonder if we’re the only ones who do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come now, Alex. You have to admit that you and Jobey aren’t exactly the most obvious couple in the world. I don’t just mean that your age difference means very few people would assume you were together if they just saw you walking down the street; I mean that neither of you goes out of your way to call attention to your relationship in public. Which is a good thing, in its way.” For the first time, Dr. Eaves seemed slightly uneasy. “I may not have said so to you openly, but when I first recommended that the University offer you a contract, I did have a few concerns about hiring our department’s first openly gay professor.”

Methos smiled softly. “I know.”

“Yes, I imagine that you do.” Dr. Eaves’s fingers plucked uncomfortably at her pants for a moment, then she caught herself and squared her shoulders, looking into Methos’s eyes with all the directness she was famous for. “Well. As we both know, my concerns turned out to be baseless. Whatever problems you may have had—and I’m not naïve enough to think that you didn’t have any, so please don’t try to tell me that you didn’t—you must have handled them with unusual skill, as nothing was ever brought to my attention. Oh, the first semester you were here, the rumors about you ran like wildfire, and all the students called you “el professor homosexual” behind your back. But there’s a new batch of kids every year, and I’ve been startled to discover that some campus scandals can have a surprisingly short life if you don’t fan the flames. Which you and Jobey don’t. You don’t talk about him in class, and you don’t engage in any obvious physical displays of affection on campus. I bet that a lot of your students now don’t have any idea that you’re gay at all, let alone committed. And…” she nodded pointedly at Methos’s left hand. “More than a few of us have noticed that you’ve stopped wearing your commitment ring.”

Drat. Again with the damned ring. Whoever would have believed that so many people would spend so much time staring at his hands? “Copper allergy,” Methos lied smoothly. “Somehow, I managed to get sensitized. It turns out that even the small amount used in 18 karat gold is enough to give me a rash. It broke my heart to stop wearing my ring, but Jobey insisted. We’re going to save up and get a matching platinum set for our next anniversary.” He added a wry shrug. “Assuming that the car doesn’t break down or the roof doesn’t start leaking. Or that there isn’t some other kind of disaster that eats up the money first.”

This earned him a warm smile. “My oldest daughter has the exact same problem,” she said, which of course Methos knew; it was why he’d picked that particular lie in the first place. “You see my point, however.” 

Methos shook his head. “I’m not sure I do, Dr. Eaves. Are you saying that if I still wore my ring, it would have somehow prevented—“ he waved his ring-less hand at the balloons—“all this?”

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Eaves said with a smile. “Not *all* of it. Human nature is what it is, Alex. There will always be some students willing to go after forbidden fruit. If the fact that you are their professor isn’t enough to stop them, then a gold band on your ring finger certainly won’t either.” She sighed. “But it might help cut down on some of it if it were more widely know that you are, in fact, taken. If you weren’t seen as such attractive ‘fair game.’” 

He stared at her. “And just how am I supposed to accomplish that?” he said incredulously. “Make out with Jobey in the middle of the student union?”

“Certainly not. That would be extremely inappropriate, and I would be forced to speak to you about it,” Dr. Eaves answered blithely. “But I am very sure that a man with your obvious social finesse can come up with something more subtle.” She gave him an amused look. “I was there at your first departmental cocktail party, you know. I thought Mr. Darwin’s stories about the number of marksmanship medals he’d won in the military were especially well-timed.”

And now Methos was completely floored. He remembered that cocktail party well. The Dean’s new young trophy wife had clearly believed that Dr. Porter’s homosexual “problem” could be cured by one night alone with a good woman, and she had nominated herself for the job. It had been centuries since Methos had found himself being backed into corners with quite so much determination. The fourth time her hand had “accidently” slipped down to grope Methos’s ass Joe had stepped in. He’d taken her arm in an iron grip and started filling her in on the details of his military service in a way that was flawlessly socially correct and polite, but accompanied by a very feral gleam in his eye. After ten minutes, the lady had excused herself, and Methos had never had another problem with her. He’d taken advantage of the break to back Joe into a corner himself—well, all right, into a corner of their host’s guest bath, some things were just too good for the common people to see—and kissed him a passionate thank you. With the result that they were both a little mussed when they finally got around to rejoining the party, some fifteen minutes later. 

But nobody had seemed to notice, and Methos had been certain that the little drama had gone un-witnessed. Certainly the Dean himself had never given Methos the slightest indication that he’d seen anything untoward. To learn that Dr. Eaves’s sharp eyes had been turned in his direction was decidedly unsettling. Methos wondered uncomfortably just what else she’d seen, and felt himself actually beginning to blush. “Um…”

“I know you’ll think of a graceful solution, Alex.” Dr. Eaves gave him a smile that avoided being a smirk only because Dr. Eaves’s exquisitely professional manners would never have allowed her to do such a thing. “Tell me. Are you still teaching that unit on ‘Music as communication’ to your linguistic science classes next week?”

Methos nodded, not entirely sure where the good doctor was going with all this. “Yes...”

“Good. It’s a worthy topic, Alex. In fact, it’s *so* worthy that you should give some serious thought to bringing in a special guest lecturer to help you illustrate it. You know. Someone who knows the subject practically, not just academically. I think the students could really benefit from being exposed to a…broader…point of view.” 

“Are you suggesting that I ask Jobey?”

Dr. Eaves’ eyes twinkled. “I’m not suggesting that you do anything, Alex. But I will say this.” She leaned toward him. “I know you are uncomfortable being the center of attention. But sometimes the only way to get people to stop looking at you isn’t to run and hide—it’s to give them a different pair of glasses to see you with. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I…suppose I do.”

“Good.” Dr. Eaves gave another couldn’t-possibly-be-a-smirk at Methos’s dumbfounded expression and stood up, skillfully pushing her way through the balloons to the door. At the threshold, she paused. “Oh, and Alex?”

Gulp. “Yes, Dr. Eaves?”

“If I were you, I’d make sure I attended the next faculty mixer—and I’d make sure that my charming life partner came with me. I know you find such things to be terribly boring, but do it anyway. It’s not just the students who found that picture intriguing, you know.”

She smiled at his obvious discomfort and swept out.

***

It took Methos some time to recover from this conversation. It's very discomfiting to realize that the boss you’ve been carefully observing for years has, in fact, been just as busy observing you. But eventually Methos was forced to admit that Dr. Eaves had a point. He and Joe *were* extremely discrete about their relationship on campus. Maybe it *was* just barely possible that gossip was failing to do its usual job. Methos went back through that week’s ‘love offerings’ with new eyes, and came to one conclusion—most of his admirers genuinely seemed to believe that he was both straight and available. Apparently his and Joe’s out-and-proud lifestyle hadn’t been quite out-and-proud enough. 

All right then. Time to give gossip something new to feed upon.

There was quite a hum of astonished conversation in class that Friday when Dr. Porter announced that his “life partner Jobey Darwin, blues musician extraordinaire” would be coming to speak to the class the following Monday. That hum rose to almost deafening buzz on Monday morning, when the class entered to find a grey-haired, middle aged man sitting on a chair at the front of the room, casually tuning an acoustic guitar while he chatted with their Professor. But when Methos called the class to order and introduced Joe to the room, the buzz suddenly died away. There weren’t even the usual quiet classroom sounds of muffled coughs and papers rustling. The room was filled with an absolute, almost hostile silence. 

It would have quelled a lesser man. But Joe had dealt with much tougher crowds in his time. He simply finished tuning his guitar, comfortably ignoring all the staring eyes, then gave the sea of youthful faces a gentle smile. “Hey there,” he said. “Thanks for the intro, Alex. Yes, everyone, I am Professor Porter’s life partner—I have been for quite a few years, now. Which mean that in addition to packing his lunches and washing his socks, I’m the one he comes to when he wants to try out ideas for new lectures.” He grinned. “Now, don’t get me wrong. Mostly, I enjoy this. Alex is a great teacher, and it’s fun to hear him talk about subjects he’s passionate about. But sometimes it’s a sacrifice. The last time we took a long road trip together, I spent *hours* listening to him ramble on about the evolution of the early Greek alphabet. I ended up having to tune in a country radio station to drown him out. I never was so glad to hear Billy Ray Cyrus sing Achey Breaky Heart in all my life....” This brought a brief shock of uncomfortable, somewhat grudging laughter from a few members of the class, and Joe raised his eyebrows at them knowingly. “Oh, so you don’t think that was an improvement, do you? Well, just keep this in mind. Those of you who ended up hearing that lecture last semester got the improved, shortened version. *I’m* the one who had to sit through the rough drafts. It’s worth remembering: for every boring lecture you sleep through in class, there’s probably some poor professor’s spouse or kid who had to hear all the essential points at least a dozen times before you did. The professor’s family is the unsung hero of modern education…”

Joe played a few notes, letting them ring out clearly into the room, then quieted them. “Anyway,” he said, continuing to play softly so that his gentle strumming formed a lulling background. “Sometimes being in love with a linguistics professor is hard work. But sometimes, it’s fun. Like now. According to Alex, you guys have been studying music all week, and that’s a subject that is very close to my heart. I love music, all kinds of music. And so studying what it does to people and *how* it does what it does is something I really enjoy. I had a lot of fun reading through Alex’s lecture notes this week.” He nodded at the table next to him, where a bound copy of Methos’s lesson plan for the week was sitting. Then he grinned suddenly. “But if I know Alex, the music he picked to illustrate his points weren’t exactly interesting. What he’d do? Make you sit through all six hours of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and then make you compare and contrast it with native aboriginal chants?”

This time, the laughter from the class was a lot less nervous, and the glances that were thrown in Methos’s direction were a lot more good humored. “He only played the fourth movement,” said a girl sitting in the front row.

“It just felt like it went on for six hours,” said the boy sitting next to her.

“Ahem,” Methos said, amid the chuckles that followed this statement, and when he had the class’s attention he spoke with great dignity. “I’ll have you know that Mahler inspired many of the late twentieth century’s most popular composers. You lot were the ones who noticed how much some of the melodies in Movement Four sounded like the Star Wars theme. I’d be happy to assign listening to the full symphony to anyone seeking extra credit. Which some of you…” he let his eyes roam pointedly around the room, “may very well need, after today.”

“Ooooo. Scaaaaary teacher guy,” Joe said, lifting his hands from the guitar defensively, as if to ward off evil extra credit. This time the class’s laughter was completely unrestrained, and that was it. From that moment on, the class of teens and twenty-somethings was his. Methos hid his smile as he made his way to a chair at the back of the class. “Okay,” Joe said when the laughter had died down. “Mahler aside, you now know that every culture on the face of the planet has made music, and that most of them have used it to enhance their societies in the very same ways. Who can tell me what some of those ways are?”

The answers came pretty fast; Methos had spent an entire day on this. “Military applications,” said a boy near the back. His short haircut and tidy jeans had “ROTC” written all over them.

“That’s right,” Joe said with an approving nod. “Spartan boys used to sing war songs to unite them as they trained, and pretty much every military worth its salt has used them since, including our own. There’s nothing like a Sousa march to get a group of raw recruits marching in step. Or a bawdy love song, sung behind the general’s back, to make a group of scared kids far from home suddenly feel like a team instead of a bunch of strangers.” More laughter. “What else?”

It was Maria Navarro who spoke up next, quietly and shyly, from her seat in the front row. “Religious ceremonies.”

“That’s right,” Joe said, giving her a gentle smile. “From the first skin drums played under a starry sky, to the glorious 19th century symphonies that filled every inch of the cathedral, mankind has always used music to enhance religious rituals. What else?”

“Sex.”

Methos wasn’t entirely sure who had contributed this, but judging from the feminine giggles that erupted from the third row, it came from one Mr. Diego Shearer. At the tender age of twenty one, Diego was already getting the reputation of being the Lothario of the linguistics department, as evidenced by the gaggle of sorority girls clustered around him. Joe grinned. “’If music be the food of love, play on!’” he quoted dramatically, waving one hand in the air, and as the giggles doubled he smiled benevolently at the row. “Yes, that’s right, too. Music is great at bringing people together. If it works well in groups, we shouldn’t be surprised that it also works on a more….shall we say, personal level, too. One on one, as it were.”

“Or two, or three, or four…”

Joe actually chuckled aloud at this. “Well, personally, keeping track of Alex is more than enough for me,” he said. “But whatever floats your boat, buddy. We old married men salute you.“ He aimed a mock salute toward the Lothario, provoking a blush from the kid and more giggles from his girlish entourage, and then took advantage of the brief lull to recapture the class’s attention by loudly rattling Methos’s lesson plan. “Right. Okay, so it sounds like you all were paying attention on day one, at least. So you know that all cultures have used music for a variety of purposes throughout time. But all those different purposes tend to boil down to one thing: bringing people together in one place, and making them experience one strong emotion, all at the same time. That emotion can be nearly anything. Patriotism, romance, rebellion, religious awe: music can communicate them all. I know Alex had you guys look over the Dutch study that proved that most people, regardless of cultural background, interpreted the emotional content of certain songs in the same way…”

“Oh, yes, that was fascinating,” Maria said earnestly, so earnestly that Methos was surprised. Maria tended to be painfully shy in class, except on the rare occasions when an academic subject interested her so much that she forgot it. Methos was a bit surprised to see that she had taken a seat in the front row at all, let alone spoken up twice. And indeed, when she saw that her outburst had gotten Joe’s attention along with the rest of the class, Maria looked like she wanted to collapse through the floor. But Joe nodded at her and motioned her to continue, so she turned around and faced the rest of the class, her gracefully accented voice surprisingly clear and steady. “90% of the people involved in the study said that the melody of “Greensleeves” made them feel sad, even the ones who had never heard it before in their lives. And here’s the really interesting thing. The results were the same even among the respondents who spoke different languages—and not just the other European languages, either. Even Kalahari Bushmen said that Greensleeves was a sad song when the researchers played it for them. And most linguistic scholars agree that they speak the most unusual, least contaminated language left on the planet.” 

“That’s right,” Joe said approvingly, and Maria sat happily back down in her chair. “Science is finally beginning to catch up with what we musicians have known all along. Music really *is* a language all its own. You could even say it’s better than most spoken languages, since nobody has to learn how to speak it. Oh, people have to learn how to play instruments and sing, but nobody has to learn how to *listen*. Music cuts across all cultural and social barriers, can make people as different as a Kalahari Bushman and a New England WASP feel sad or happy or awed. So the next question is: why?”

“But Dr. Porter already had us study that,” said a slightly puzzled voice from somewhere in the back. “He got us the notes from the musical recognition project at MIT. MRIs show that music stimulates an older part of the brain than spoken language does, the part that experiences emotion. It bypasses the cerebral cortex and goes directly to the limbic system…”

“Yeah,” Joe nodded. “Yeah, Alex had me read through that too, before he’d let me come to here to speak to you. You guys aren’t the only ones he gives homework to, you know.” Chuckles. “So I know about that. I also know a couple of the theories as to why that might be true. Maybe we human beings sang before we spoke…maybe the reason we first started making noises at each other in the first place was to express how we felt, not to tell each other how to hunt or which pretty green plants were poisonous like the evolutionary psychologists always thought. Or maybe music is to the human nervous system what a virus is to a computer—that the pathways it uses in the brain originally evolved for other purposes, like talking and moving, and it’s just our good luck that makes its effect on us relatively benign. Yeah, I did the homework. And I have to say that all these theories are fascinating, but they overlook the one basic thing that makes music so powerful.

“Music lets us communicate all the things that are far too stupid for ordinary speech.”

Joe surveyed the rather strained silence that met this declaration, and arched his eyebrows. “Oh, you don’t believe me, do you?” he said. “Maybe you’ll believe Voltaire, then. You academic types all seem to like him. It was a quote from him that first got me thinking along these lines. He wrote back in 1842 that ‘Anything that is too stupid to be said is sung’—and he was right. Of course, he was mostly trying to make fun of the popular musicians of his day, but he was onto the truth—a profounder truth than most people guess. Need a practical example?” Joe looked out over the class. “Is anybody having a birthday soon?”

There were some murmuring and shuffling and turning of heads, and at last a blond girl—one of the sorority girls clustered around Diego in row three--raised her hand. “You, sweetie?” Joe asked. “Okay, come up here for a sec.” Suitably egged on by her peers, the young woman did so, somewhat self-consciously straightening her sweater as she came to stand next to Joe. “What’s your name?”

“Molly.”

“And when’s your birthday?”

“Next Friday.”

“Okay. Well, this is a little early, then, but it’s heartfelt.” Joe reached out and took her hand. The girl flushed a little, but on the whole looked quite pleased as Joe looked up into her face. “Happy Birthday to you,” he said solemnly, not a hint of lilt or melody to the words. “Happy birthday to you.”

Molly couldn’t help it. Joe’s delivery was perfectly deadpan, and the result was wonderfully absurd. After the first happy birthday Molly gave a very un-ladylike snort of laughter, and was soon giggling away uncontrollably. By the time Joe had reached “Happy birthday, *dear* Molly. Happy birthday to you,” giving a very comic emphasis to the ‘dear’, the whole class had joined in the laughter. 

Joe dropped the girl’s hand and turned toward his audience. “You see?” he said, a happy sparkle in his eye. “Dumb, dumb, dumb. Absurd in the extreme. Nobody would ever go around actually talking like that. It’s too ridiculous to even think about. But set it to music…” His fingers dropped to the guitar, effortlessly and easily striking a beautiful major chord, and a second later his voice blended in with it, this time singing the song as it was meant to be sung. He gestured at the audience, inviting them to join in. “Happy Birthday to you…”

One by one, the class joined in the chorus. Methos felt his heart swell unexpectedly. Many people had sung Happy Birthday to Methos over the last century, always on birthdates he’d made up—usually by just throwing a dart at calendar and going with whatever date the point speared. It wasn’t until he’d met Cassie in Nepal that Methos had learned his true birthdate, at least as closely as it could be translated into the modern calendar. And life had gotten so unbelievably, horrifically complicated after he left Nepal that he’d…well, not forgotten it exactly. The date had lingered in his mind, inextricably linked with sadness that there was no one on earth he could trust enough to share it with, Joe then being beyond his reach. And for the first few years after he and Joe had reconciled there had always been something else going on at that time of year, some earth-shattering Immortal or Watcher crisis, that had made celebrating his birthday seem very unimportant. Methos never *had* gotten around to telling the date to Joe. 

But either Cassie or Sandra must have. Because the first spring that there was any peace in their lives—it was the year after they had first moved to London—Methos had woken up on the morning of March 10th with his head cradled in Joe’s lap, the voice he loved more than anything else in the world quietly singing “Happy Birthday” in his ear. The knowledge that he was being sung to on the genuine anniversary of his birth by a man who knew his true name and age and was honestly glad that he’d been born had hit Methos like a freight train. He’d started shaking in Joe’s arms, and hadn’t stopped until after the extremely gentle and tender early-morning-happy-birthday-sex Joe had treated him to, still occasionally singing in his ear. As a result, Methos had come away with a greater appreciation of the silly little birthday ditty than he’d ever expected. He’d always thought it was one of western civilization’s dumber customs, before…

And Joe was apparently working a similar kind of magic with his linguistics class, albeit minus the mind-blowing happy-birthday-sex part. Methos was too caught up in his memories to catch the exact moment when the class went from half-hearted, embarrassed, I-can’t-believe-we’re-actually-doing-this type singing to singing with gusto. But by the time he returned to the here-and-now the magic had happened. Everyone was singing along enthusiastically, so successfully that Joe was harmonizing and leading them through a second (or possibly a third, or fourth) repeat. When they finally ended…drawing out the final “toooo…youuuu!” with so much joy and volume that Methos had a feeling he was going to get complaints from the professor who taught across the hall…Joe played the final chord and beamed. “Beautiful!” he said, laying the guitar aside and raising his hands in honest applause. “There, you see? Stupid words when spoken. But when sung…not only did it bring a group of people together, but it created a moment of beauty which I, for one, will remember for a very long time to come.” He nodded at Molly. “Thank you, honey. You can sit back down now.”

Blushing, the girl did, returning to a clique that was much more open-hearted and congratulatory than teasing, as they’d been when she went up. As far as Methos could see, there was only one skeptic still left in the class…a bookish young man Methos had long ago privately nicknamed “Mr. Classroom Lawyer”. “But ‘Happy Birthday’ only sounds dumb when spoken because of its simplicity and the repetition,” he said, and Methos could almost hear his disdainful, lawyer-like sniff. “Surely you don’t think ALL music has the same ‘stupidity’, Mr. Darwin?”

“No,” Joe answered seriously. “I don’t. There are some song lyrics…even popular ones…that I think could compete with the works of some of the greatest poets in history. But they’re rare. For the most part, the most powerful songs—and by that I mean the ones that last from generation to generation, meaning something new to each one-- are generally the dumbest. Take what this young man here…” Joe nodded at Diego… “mentioned as being the third great purpose of music: the classic love song. How many of you recognize this?” He quickly turned a few of the guitar’s tuning pegs, forcing it ever so slightly out-of tune. Then, eyes meeting Methos’s across the hall, Joe struck a very familiar opening chord. He began to sing in raucous rock-and-roll style:

“Wild thing  
You make my heart sing.  
You make everything groooovy.  
Oh, my wild thing…”

Methos grinned outright. There were one or two blank faces in the crowd, but by far the larger portion of his fiercely modern, 21st century students all seemed to know the 1960’s Trogg’s song by heart. Nearly everyone started singing along, and when Joe reached the spoken verse: “Wild thing—I think I love you” the shouted response: “But I want to know for sure!” was so enthusiastic that Methos once again began to fear the opposite professor’s wrath. Damn. He really should have made sure Dr. Moni didn’t have a test scheduled today before he’d invited Joe. But his class was laughing and engaged, and continued to be so as Joe played through a whole medley of sixties, seventies, and eighties hits. The songs were all popular enough to still be known by most of the students in the class—and they were all extremely stupid, if one analyzed their lyrics logically. “There, you see?” Joe said, laying aside the guitar for a break, wiping his forehead theatrically. “All of those songs were written before most of the people in this room were even born. But you all know them anyway. And they’re all *dumb*. Some are worse than others, I agree. But none of them would you recite out loud to win an elocution competition.”

There were some giggles and nods of agreement from the class…all except for Mr. Classroom Lawyer, who still looked doubtful. “Yeah,” he said cynically. “But all of those songs are *old*.”

There was a quick, surprised intake of breath from the assembled class. Joe, Methos was pleased to see, had made a lot of friends for himself that afternoon, and the class was shocked to hear what could be taken as a very rude criticism of Joe’s age from one of its own members. The boy instantly looked around him, noting the looks of disapproval from his peers, and looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “But…I mean…well, things were simpler way back then. You have to expect that the music was, too.”

The rest of the class seemed incensed by this, and even Methos raised his eyebrows a little. Joe, however, remained unoffended. “No, no, he’s got a point,” he said calmly. “Popular music has gotten a lot more complicated in the last few decades. If you listen to an early Buddy Holly tune, recorded on one mike with nothing but a guitar, a bass, and a drummer to back Buddy up, and then you compare it to your average modern pop song with I don’t know how many tracks and a full orchestra in the background besides…well, it’s a little like comparing a Model T to a rocket ship. And to some extent the lyrics have evolved too, simply because it’s cheaper to record a longer song than it used to be. Modern artists now have the time to say more than the Crickets ever had room for. But here’s the thing.” Joe leaned forward slightly. “*Life* itself hasn’t gotten any more complicated. Very little actually changes from generation to generation, except for the individuals who are witnessing it. Human beings have always worried about exactly the same things: how to earn a living, who they should marry, what to do with a cheating spouse once they’ve gotten married, and so on and so forth. And just in case you think that it’s just *my* generation that’s got a monopoly on writing stupid songs about those worries…well, all I can say is that I beg to differ with you.” Joe suddenly smiled a smile that could only be called ‘wolfish’. He started to sing, acapella this time. “Rah, rah, ah ah ah. Ro ma, ro ma ma. Gaga ooh la la…”

Methos was amongst the many who chuckled as they recognized the intro to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. The song had slowly been taking over the campus, and indeed, the entire world, during the last few months. Even lawyer boy grinned and subsided, Joes’ musical argument completely blowing his out of the water. Only one girl--a young lady with green hair and nose ring who was making a solid B in Methos’s class, despite the fact that she never spoke up voluntarily and always participated in the required class exercises with a repellant air of boredom and disdain—spoke up. “Bad Romance’ isn’t stupid,” she mumbled to herself in the back row. “Lady Gaga’s making an important statement about how the monogamous, hearts and flowers, living-happily-ever-after kind of romance isn’t the only kind that’s desirable. It’s actually a really brave subversion of the dominant paradigm.” But as she spoke too quietly for anyone but Methos to overhear, Methos felt justified in failing to call Joe’s attention to it.

Anyway, another young woman was getting his attention instead: Maria was timidly raising her hand, and Joe was nodding at her to speak. “Mr. Darwin,” she said politely, “most of the songs you’ve given us for examples are love songs. Surely you’re not trying to tell us that love is stupid?”

“Have you ever been in love, Maria?” Jobey asked. 

Almost involuntarily, the girl’s eyes flickered back to where Methos was sitting. Suddenly Methos knew…just knew…who had been leaving him the white roses with the pink ribbons around the stems. It did make a kind of sense. White flowers were almost always meant to convey a certain purity and wistfulness in love, and a dark pink ribbon was often a symbol of gratitude. Methos kept his expression steady, though, watching with the appearance of only mild interest while Maria’s face took on the hues of deep embarrassment, so much embarrassment that Methos guessed she was moments away from bolting for the door. Fortunately, Joe saw it too. He raised his hands apologetically, and spoke to her with great gentleness. “Sorry, honey,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that. I forgot how impolite it was for any man to quiz a lady about her love life, particularly in front of a classroom full of people. I just meant…well.” 

He raised his voice, once again addressing the class as whole. “Most of you in this room are still so young that your thirtieth birthdays aren’t even a dots on the horizon yet…let alone a distant view in the rearview mirror, like mine is for me. So I imagine that there’s at least a few of you who have never been in love, as well as some who have been in love a dozen times. Maybe there’s even a couple of you who’ve been lucky enough to find The One. But no matter where you are, if you’re *really* honest with yourself, I think you’ll agree on one thing. Love…is…*stupid*.” 

There were some smiles of agreement from some members of the class, as well as a few shocked looks. Joe shook his head nostalgically. “I mean, it really, really is,” he said. “I know Oprah and the Hallmark company won’t agree with me, but love is *dumb*, man. Not only does it make you act in stupid ways, it’s just such a ridiculous concept all on its own—anti-survival, as someone I know once would have said. Just think about it for a sec. Deciding to put all your faith in something as unreliable as another human being? Making another person the center of your life, involving them in all your plans, giving them the ability to break your heart? It really is stupid. Idiotic even.” Joe paused for a moment, and then his face broke into a wide, beautifully knowing grin. “But stupid or not, it’s also the best damn thing there is in this world. And it’s the only thing worth living for.”

He met Methos’s eyes across the room, sharing a moment of passionate, wordless love that neither of them gave a damn if the students saw. Then Joe smiled again and returned his attention to the class. “So that’s my point, really. Going back to Voltaire: anything too stupid to be said is sung—yeah, it’s really true. We process the spoken word with our mind, always testing the truth and logic of the statements. Music alone goes straight to our hearts. And sometimes it’s those stupid, straight-to-the-heart type things that most need to be said.” 

Joe looked thoughtful. “One of you said that the reason Happy Birthday was stupid was because of its repetition. That made me think of something a friend of mine once said, more than a decade ago. She was dying of ovarian cancer, and during the last few months of her life she told me that she’d discovered there were some things that couldn’t be said too often. Things like “I love you.” And “You’re a very special person, I’m glad you’re in my life.” The problem is, we human beings don’t like spoken repetition. It bores us, even makes us wonder if the repeated statement is untrue. But music bridges that gap. It lets us say what we need to, over and over again, without ever losing our listener’s attention. Or faith.”

Joe nodded at the class. “So I want you all to think about that, the next time you’re singing a dumb camp song in the car with your family, or putting a baby to sleep with a lullaby, or listening to your iPod when a pop song moves you so much that you just have to get up and dance. Music *is* communication. It’s the purest, most beautiful form of communication we have, understood by nearly every human being on earth. And with that in mind…” His eyes twinkled mischievously. “I think you should all encourage your professor to demonstrate his grasp of this concept by coming up and singing a duet with me. Don’t you?”

“Oh, no no no,” Methos said instantly, firmly shaking his head. It was too late, however. The class had already started chanting “Duet! Duet!”, and Methos knew he was trapped. He gave in and made his way up to the front of the room, listening to the chant break into loud whoops and applause as he did. “You never said anything about making *me* sing,” he said under the cover of the student’s hollering.

“You were the one who wanted to make our relationship more public, Alex,” Joe said in a hush. “Come on. Let’s give ‘em something to talk about.”

He played a few familiar bars, the opening of yet another 1960’s love song. The class quieted instantly; Methos grinned and shook his head. Joe had chosen well. This duet would indeed be talked about all over the campus today, and probably remembered by the students for years to come. But at least one more token protest had to be made. “I am not going to be Cher,” he said.

“Darn. And you look so *good* in high heels, too,” Joe answered, causing more laughter and a few scandalized gasps from the more conservative kids in the audience. Joe grinned, fingers still playing the music underneath their banter. “But I’m not fussy. You can be Sonny, if you want. That means you have to lead, though. Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“I think I can endeavor not to let you down.”

“No.” Joe gave him a smile that was pure sweetness. “You never do.” 

He touched Methos’s hand briefly, warmly, causing a few of the third-row-girls to say “awww,” before giving way to more nervous giggles. Methos shook his head, but he was smiling too, embarrassment fighting a quickly losing battle to the warm glow rising in his heart. He snuck a quick peek at Maria, wondering how his erstwhile floral stalker was coping with this obvious display of affection. She was watching them intently, looking back and forth between their two faces, but to Methos’s surprise she didn’t look upset…just fascinated. Thoughtful. Joe finished the bar he was playing, cycled effortlessly back to intro. “Get ready,” he said, and Methos snapped his attention back to the stage, determined not to leave him hanging. “Good,” Joe said approvingly. “Almost there. One..two..here we go…”

Methos took a deep breath and opened his mouth. 

He was surprised by the sudden surge of nerves he felt. It wasn’t that he had a bad voice. He’d once spent a decade living as a minstrel during the middle ages, and he’d sung with Byron often during his Jim Morrison days. It was just that, next to Joe’s voice, Methos’s always sounded a bit unfinished. It was too quiet and nowhere near as complex…rather like a single violin in comparison to a full symphony. Their few duets were rare, quiet things, usually sung at home when they were both washing dishes or occupied in some other household chore. Methos could count on one hand the number of times when Joe had talked him into sharing a public stage. 

But Joe was looking at him so hopefully, with so much encouragement in his eyes. No way was Methos going to disappoint him. He reached down past the nerves and started out boldly, determined not to let his soul mate down. “They say we’re young and we don’t know/ And won’t find out, until we grow…”

… and ended up flubbing it on the very first line.

Methos couldn’t help it. It was just too ridiculous, being a 5,000 year old man singing about being too young to understand love. And the way Joe’s eyes were sparkling at him, telling him without words that he understood the irony, made it worse. Methos’s snort of laughter was very loud and most definitely interrupted the flow of the music. 

But then Joe started laughing too, as did the rest of the class, and with the skill of the true artist Joe somehow managed to stretch the tune to make room for it. By the time Joe had finished singing the response and they’d chimed in together on the first “Babe. I’ve got you, babe” of the chorus, their snickers and chuckles had been effortlessly woven into the music. The laughter added its own harmony, transforming the corny 60’s lyrics into something that was warmhearted and fun and beautiful. Even the sudden realization that Joe had somehow snookered him into singing Cher’s part after all didn’t spoil it. Methos just shook his head and looked more deeply into Joe’s eyes as he sang, seeing all the love and humor and sweetness of their history reflected back at him. 

Methos had no idea how much that look communicated to the class, how much feeling it exposed. A few of the students were made uneasy by it, left squirming in their chairs and glancing uncomfortably up at the classroom clock. But the majority simply enjoyed. And when Methos and Joe got to the final series of couplets and Joe’s gravelly bluesman’s voice suddenly lost all its humor as he sang “I got you to walk with me” and Methos sang “And I got you to talk with me” just as seriously back, there were very few dry eyes in the house.

The applause and cheers they got when they finished went on for a very, very long time.

***

The next day, Methos walked into his office to find yet another rose tied with ribbon awaiting him. His heart sank, but this time the rose was yellow—symbolic of friendship instead of love--and the pink ribbon around it had a small white card attached. *Maybe this is far too stupid for ordinary speech* the card read, *but it needs to be communicated, just the same. You and your partner have shown me what love really is. Thank you.*

He put the card down and, whistling, went about his day.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Long term fans of my Adam & Joe stories (and bless you, every single one of you! You make my life a special and wonderful thing!!!) will note that Maria Navarro was originally named Maria Alcobar in this story. Recently, it was pointed out to me by the great LadySilver that Maria Alcobar was the full name of Richie's model foster-sister in "Chivalry"--a fact I honestly hadn't remembered! So, since I didn't want there to be any confusion between the two, Methos's student Maria has officially been re-christened, and will continue to be Maria Navarro throughout the rest of the series (yes, you will see her again. ;) I apologize heartily for any "Huh? What?" moments this may have caused!


End file.
